Please Stop Helping Us – Endorsements & Reviews

After weeks of national angst generated when a white police officer shot an unarmed black man on the streets of Ferguson, Mo., perhaps it is time we have an honest discussion about race in America. But if we do so, the voices should not be restricted to those who carry a sense of racial grievance and blame racism as the root cause of all the problems that afflict the black community. Jason Riley, a Wall Street Journal editorial board member and author of ‘Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks To Succeed,’ is certainly one man who should be listened to. (Read the entire review)

Ever since it was published in June, Jason L. Riley’s ‘Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed’ has been attacked by the liberal establishment and black talking heads who continue to deliver the ‘It’s not our fault, it’s white racism’ argument as an explanation for lack of progress for African-Americans. They pour boiling oil on Bill Cosby, Thomas Sowell, Jason Riley and others who call for an end to destructive black culture that despises intellectual activity and celebrates the gansta hip-hop culture . . . To those who believe that Jason Riley is another black mouthing white racist ideology, I say read the book and look at the facts. As the saying goes, ‘you are entitled to your opinions, but not your facts.’ (Read the entire review)

Jason L. Riley launches a broadside attack . . . with Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed, declaring that the very tools designed to assist Black Americans are the same ones gutting it. Armed with an impressive array of statistics, Riley argues that in nearly every way Black Americans are worse off in the affirmative action era then they were before it. Black America is a sick man and the medicine is less treatment, not more. (Read the entire review)

Riley’s writing style will hold the reader’s interest. One of the most important factors of this book is that the author doesn’t just talk about his own theories and opinions; he backs up everything he writes about with historical facts . . . Race issues are heated and often times explosive; it’s been so in past generations and will probably continue to a certain degree in future generations. This book takes a calm and methodical look at the aftermath of some of the decisions made and the repercussions that have occurred. (Read the entire review)

A half-century ago, the Great Society promised to complete the civil rights revolution by pulling African-Americans into the middle class. Today, a substantial black middle class exists, but its primary function has been, ironically, to provide custodial care to a blackunderclass—one ever more deeply mired in the pathologies of subsidized poverty. In Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed, Jason Riley, an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal who grew up in Buffalo, New York, explains how poverty programs have succeeded politically by failing socially. (Read the entire review)

“Please Stop Helping Us’ by Jason Riley is a much-needed fundamental education on the facts about race in America. It is an honest discussion of race in plain English, without the evasive rhetoric and outright cant that have become the norm in these politically correct times. It packs a lot of facts and a lot of wisdom into 204 pages of very easily understood writing. I cannot think of any book that has said so much in so few pages since Milton Friedman’s ‘Capitalism and Freedom’ back in 1962. This book would be an especially valuable gift for someone who has just graduated from a college that pushes the usual politically correct line on racial issues. A few doses of the truth can work wonders.”—Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of “Intellectuals and Race”

“From affirmative action to welfare, a devastating examination of the real-life effects of good intentions gone terribly wrong. This thoughtful, lucid, and often restrained account of the wreckage produced by racial politics marks Jason Riley as one of the nation’s rising political writers.”—Charles Krauthammer, nationally syndicated columnist and Fox News commentator

“Boom! A combative, conservative shot to the jaw of liberal dogma about black America. Riley is brash in calling out the phony leaders, the false prophets. He exposes the weak thinking behind so many of the smiling faces with good intentions that lead to bad results for those of us most in need of help.”—Juan Williams, author of “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965” and “Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate”

“There are people who labor under the impression that the last word on race issues in modern America is work by writers like Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson. Too few understand that after one has sampled them, true enlightenment can come only by also reading work like this book by Jason Riley. The current civil rights orthodoxy is longer on custom than concrete goals. ‘Please Stop Helping Us shows us why.’”—John McWhorter, professor of linguistics and Western civilization at Columbia University and author of “Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America” and “Authentically Black: Essays for the Black Silent Majority”

“Jason Riley has written a superb book about government policies that are intended to help blacks, but have instead gone on to injure them with the helping hand. I was particularly taken by the sophistication, scholarly competence, and fresh thinking around these very complex issues. This fine book is a major contribution to our thinking about black socioeconomic progress.”—Robert L. Woodson, Sr., founder and president, Center for Neighborhood Enterprise and author of “The Triumphs of Joseph: How Today’s Community Healers are Reviving Our Streets and Neighborhoods”